Spin Flipping and Polarization Lifetimes of a 270 MeV Deuteron Beam

Abstract

We recently studied the spin flipping of a 270 MeV vertically polarized deuteron beam stored in the IUCF Cooler Ring. We swept an rf solenoid’s frequency through an rf‐induced spin resonance and observed the effect on the beam’s vector and tensor polarizations. After optimizing the resonance crossing rate and setting the solenoid’s voltage to its maximum value, we obtained a spin‐flip efficiency of about 94 ± 1% for the vector polarization; we also observed a partial spin‐flip of the tensor polarization. We then used the rf‐induced resonance to measure the vector and tensor polarizations’ lifetimes at different distances from the resonance; the polarization lifetime ratio τvector/τtensor was about 1.9 ± 0.4. © 2003 American Institute of Physics